by Jerome Sitko
Charlie calmly arrives and stares at Joey without saying a word. Joey, who was on his knees on the other side of Jeremy, stands up and is suddenly calm, just as calm as Charlie. I don’t know what to do; my mind is racing, and I can hardly breathe—out of breath from running and fear, my heart feels like it will explode out of my chest. What are we going to do with Jeremy? I think. “The vultures will take him,” Charlie says. “Everyone back in the car.” He performs a pirouette to the music in his head and walks away. I notice Charlie’s head shows no sign of crashing into the windshield, not a scratch.
Out of nowhere, I see four dark spots coming toward us at meteoric speed. I’m still close enough to Jeremy’s body that I turn my head in time to see the vultures each grab a limb. Vultures are large animals, I know. But these vultures are enormous, the size of ostriches. As they snatch Jeremy, I realize they’re not just gigantic birds. These vultures have no feathers, only sun-cured, black, leathery skin. They look more like giant bats than vultures. The one that grabs Jeremy’s left arm is closest to me, and I catch a glimpse of its head. It has a long neck, and its beak is filled with row after row of sharp, yellow-stained canine teeth, its disfigured beak unable to close completely. A black, cracked membrane has replaced its eyes—no eyeball, no socket. I wonder how they see, I think, and then answer my question: They must echolocate like bats. This shit’s crazy. It can’t be real. This isn’t happening, I think.
“Lance, this is the journey, and I’m here to help and protect you,” Emma, my guardian, says.
“What about Ryan and Jeremy? How come no one protected them?” A rush of adrenaline floods over me, and I quickly look at Charlie, who is almost to the Camaro, to see if he’s in my head or has heard Emma’s voice. I look down, and I’m still holding the rock in my hand as I walk toward the car. He didn’t hear me, but more important, he didn’t hear Emma. Why can’t Charlie hear her? Thoughts are racing through my head again. “He can’t hear me in your head just like I can’t hear him when he’s in other people’s heads. I’ve been with you your whole life, Lance, but in this world, things are different. We can’t make you forget your memories here,” Emma says as she briefly appears in front of me and then disappears, so Charlie doesn’t see her.
Seeing her again releases my suppressed memories of our visit when I was nine years old, and it all comes back to me: my mom and Darren fighting, the cold, dark stone room, and the arched door with the shield and phoenixes coming to life. I feel more confident now that I know I have an ally in this world, someone looking over me.
“Can you bring Ryan and Jeremy back when this is all over?” I ask Emma.
“No, Lance, I’m sorry. I don’t have that kind of power,” she says. I reach the car and slide into the backseat, exhausted and gloomy that I lost another friend, but optimistic that Emma is now here to help Joey and me. The Camaro roars to life and accelerates, and we’re back on the Highway to Hell. I must have fallen asleep, but I don’t know for how long. I’m jolted awake by Joey’s happy exclamation, “We’re here!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
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I PERK UP AND look out the front window. Where the hell is ‘here’? It looks like the same barren and desolate desert we have been traveling for days. Off in the distance I can see the silhouette of what looks like a large factory, except no smoke is coming out the chimney stacks, no lights illuminate the windows; it’s deserted and out of place. But in this world, I suppose anything is possible. The orange hue of the sky suddenly darkens, and the ground starts to buckle and sway, forming large cracks as dirt, rock, and road tear apart all around us. I feel like I’m on a slow-moving roller coaster. I think, Holy shit, we must be in an earthquake. “What’s going on!?” I yell over the sound of the earth, moving like a tidal wave. Joey is concentrating on the road in front of us, trying not to crash and does not answer.
Charlie seems unfazed and turns to me and says, “Don’t worry, kiddo, it’s all to be expected. We’ll be there in a jiffy.” He then gets a smirk on his face and says, in his best flight attendant’s voice, “You might want to buckle up; it looks like we’re going to hit some turbulence.” The sky fills with the overgrown vultures, almost completely blocking any remaining light. Joey violently swerves, and I bang my head against the inside of the car. I regain myself and look out the window. Joey is swerving to avoid sinkholes that suddenly appear in the road, and now he is trying to avoid people, too. Out of the side window, I see hundreds, maybe thousands, of people walking. Like a colony of obedient ants, they are heading to the same place: the factory.
“I’ve asked my grouplings to join us,” Charlie states proudly. “And quit fucking swerving, just run them the fuck over,” he yells at Joey. This is the most excited I have seen Charlie. Joey obeys, and for the last couple of minutes of our ride from hell, we slam person after person with a thud. I turn and look out the back window and see mangled bodies littering the road behind us before being swallowed up by the ground, and I think of Jeremy.
The Camaro skids to a stop at the base of the factory, feet from a crumbling retainer wall. Charlie and Joey thrust open the doors and exit the car like kings surveying a battlefield. I, on the other hand, am more apprehensive and so slowly, cautiously exit. I peer down onto the dirt, and I’m relieved that there are no body parts. I step onto the swaying ground and place one hand on the roof of the Camaro for balance. “Thank you, Joey, for getting us here. You may join the other grouplings now and rest,” Charlie says. Joey obediently ends his life without a word using his trusted pocket knife. I watch as four kamikaze vultures turn and descend toward us. I let out a scream and lunge toward him, still off-balance, and Charlie grabs me. “Leave him alone; you’re coming with me,” he says, tightening his grip on my arm. His hands are cold, leathery, dead feeling, not at all what I expected. All my power and will immediately release from my body, and I’m powerless to fight back.
Inside the factory, the grouplings fill every hall, stairwell, and room. There are men, women, tall, short, dark-haired, blonde. Some are wearing pants, some shorts, some dresses, and some nothing at all. At first glance, they look like regular people. If you filled an auditorium with them, it would look like parents at a JV basketball game. That’s until you look at their faces. Their eyes are soulless, and you can see the blue-green flesh rotting away around their mouths, eyes, and ears. And the smell in the factory—I thought the smell in the Camaro was terrible, but that wasn’t anything compared to this. The pungent smell that invades my nose and clings to my clothes reminds me of rotting earthworms. There’s an eerie quiet, and no one is talking; I can hear our footsteps against the metal grates of the stairs and Charlie quietly humming to himself, “Sympathy for the Devil,” a Rolling Stones song. We keep traveling down for what feels like an eternity, and we’re in a room that does not belong to the factory. I know this because all of the places in the factory are steel, wood, and square. This room is brick, stone, and oval, with nothing in it except one other door on the far side. The door has a design in its center, but I can’t make it out. It looks like a phoenix flying out from behind a shield. I realize where we are now: back in the room Emma brought me. “You’re correct, Lance, this is the room. Now pay attention to what is going on, trust in me,” Emma says. I can feel the evil emanating from every pore of every brick-and-stone in this room. This room is pure hatred, amplified by centuries of the most disgusting mass murderers who ever lived, focusing all of their evil on this one spot. It’s alive, not merely a room out of place in a factory in a different world. No, this room is alive; I can feel its heartbeat and excitement as we stand on its floor. Charlie is now in the center of the room and raises his arms toward its ceiling, leans his head back, and starts chanting. He is chanting a hymn to free Erebus. The grouplings standing in the balconies that surround us mimic Charlie in unison. I can feel Charlie’s power swell until it feels like he will burst, and his feet lift off the ground, and he ascends into the center of the room, suspended by the curses of
all the murderers who have ever lived. His human shape transmutes and the image I briefly saw in the rearview mirror reappears, replacing his cheekbones and dimpled chin. It’s grotesque, loathsome. Words can’t detail the contorted inhumane figure before me. I’m so terrified I can’t move, and suddenly Joey and Jeremy appear out of the darkness next to me. They look like my friends, but they’re not. They’re grouplings now. I’m confused and don’t know what to do. I don’t know how or why my friends are back by my side. I want to be happy they’re here, but I know it’s a ruse. Their shells are standing next to me, but not them. Charlie begins spinning above us as the chants reverberate in the room. The stone beneath our feet starts shifting and cracking until a fissure appears, leading to the center where a portal begins to emerge. How do we end this? How do we escape? Where is Emma? Why is she not helping? I think, and I instinctively look up at Charlie, like so many times before, when I worried about him knowing my thoughts. He is still spinning, and the figure that once was his body is twisting into inconceivable positions that even the most flexible contortionist could not pull off. His body is no longer bones and flesh; it’s evil. My right hand squeezes down and I feel the comfort of my rock, my talisman. The stone is burning hot in my hand, and I can feel the power from it radiate through my body. My hand is now translucent and blue light emits from it in all directions. I squeeze even harder and again turn my attention to how we’re going to escape.
Joey turns to me with dead eyes and says, “Your blood must fill the portal,” pointing to the newly formed hole. “Fuck you, Joey!” I yell in a shrill voice. As my mind is racing, Emma’s voice enters: “Lance, I gave you the talisman; it’s the power to stop this. Cast it into the portal—hurry! It’s the only object that can stop Adamah and Sheol from interlinking.” I squeeze it even tighter, not wanting to lose the only object that has brought me any comfort during this journey. The phoenixes are growing and breaking free from their guard mount, preparing to attack. But attack whom? Charlie or me? The chants from Charlie and the grouplings intensify into a blistering shriek all around me. I look up, and Charlie is the conductor shifting his psychopomps within the room. Joey has his knife out and is hacking Jeremy’s wrist while the other grouplings are holding his arm over the fissure. I realize that I must act now, but I’m frozen in the imaginary tar again and can’t move, can’t act. As Jeremy’s blood begins flowing from the fissure to the portal, Charlie feels his power building.
The flaccid demons stimulated and freed by Jeremy’s blood, begin escaping out of the portal. Erebus, sensing their release is near, and the realm opening to release them, grow frenetic, driving Charlie harder. Soon it will be irreversible. “You MUST hurry if you want to save your world and yourself… THROW THE TALISMAN!” yells Emma, who is now next to me. I look at Joey and Jeremy one more time, turn, and launch the talisman. As it leaves my hand I immediately regret my decision. It lands short.
Charlie spins to look at me, his grotesque face contorting and pulsing. He can now see Emma by my side. In this room, both sides are neutral. He realizes the rock has power and can stop the splice. His eyes are pitch black and as large as cup saucers as he swoops down toward the rock and I instinctively lunge forward. It is my first act of courage, and I remember the promise I made to myself at Jeremy’s house when Brian was picking on me. We violently meet at the portal.
His hands resemble mutated talons as they burrow into my back as he tries to lift and carry me away from the talisman. The pain is excruciating, and my vocal cords release an agonizing shriek, joining the chorus of the other lost souls in the room. One of the phoenixes now swooping above us dives with the precision of a guided missile and collides into Charlie’s head with the force of a school bus. The phoenix explodes into an exceptional fireworks finale, lighting the entire room with flames and feathers. I tumble to the ground, unconscious from the pain and impact. When I regain consciousness, Charlie is nowhere to be found, and the two phoenixes are perched at the portal as if protecting their eggs.
In the prone position, I begin low crawling toward the talisman, adrenaline masking the pain of my wounds. I look up as Charlie reemerges from the endless ceiling and dive bombs toward me at breakneck speed. We again meet at the talisman, and with the tips of my fingers, I slide the rock forward, and it drops into the eternal hole.
At first, nothing happens, and a feeling of dread overcomes me; I think I’ve failed. I’ve failed not only my friends and Emma but everyone. The room grows eerily quiet and then suddenly implodes violently from all sides, hurtling brick and stone in all directions. Already on the ground, prone, I shield my head with my arms. I look up in time to see Charlie battling to escape the phoenixes as they drag him into the portal. Our eyes lock one last time, and instead of evil, I see Charlie’s eyes, the real Charlie. Charlie’s real name is Abel Stratt. A boy from Seattle, Washington, the only child of his strong, single mom, Sarah.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
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SARAH’S LIFE WAS TRAGICALLY stolen from her on her way home from a double shift at the Dog House restaurant on 7th Avenue and Bell Street. She was walking home when a nineteen-year-old drunk driver lost control of his silver Pontiac Fiero and slammed into her on the sidewalk. Charlie (Abel) was shuttled away to live with his aunt and uncle, Sylvia and Bernard, in Bellingham, Washington. Abel should never have been placed with them. Sylvia was a bipolar alcoholic with severe depression, and Bernard was a sadist. They never wanted him but wanted the government assistance that was attached to him. After a few visits, social services stopped coming around. That’s when they locked him in a dark and musty basement with only a thin mattress, TV, and the stuffed bear given to him by his nonexistent caseworker.
Abel was forced to wear diapers until his escape at age twelve. He didn’t go to school or play with other kids; the only social interaction he received was when his uncle was drunk and molested him. His aunt refused to acknowledge him at all, staying upstairs. In the latter years, his uncle began inviting his friends to join in, for a fee. It was one of his uncle’s careless friends who didn’t double-check the lock on the basement door. He carelessly rushed out of the basement and the house after an extremely violent sexual session with Abel. His uncle hadn’t known; he was asleep, drunk, in his chair. That’s when Abel escaped. He was discovered by a passing motorist, crawling on all fours down the road, nothing on but a diaper.
Internal bleeding and a fractured collarbone hospitalized him for nearly a month. He was malnourished and had cigarette burns all over his body, including on his tongue. He also had scars on his back and legs from being whipped with a wire hanger. But the most gruesome discovery for the medical professionals was when they discovered his uncle had pounded small finishing nails into the bottom of Abel’s feet so he could not stand, walk, or run away. His knees were calloused and raw from living this way. His aunt and uncle were arrested and subsequently convicted. The judge stated that he had never in his nineteen-year career encountered more despicable and sick individuals as Abel’s aunt and uncle. Abel spent the rest of his teenage life in foster homes, juvenile detention, and the streets, honing his skill craft he would use as an adult psychotic serial killer. I want to believe that I saw remorse and relief in Charlie’s eyes, but I will never really know.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
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“GRAB THEM AND GO now—hurry,” I hear Emma in my head. I quickly look around as the world is crumbling into itself. I spot Joey and Jeremy and grab each of them by the hand and start running toward the stairs. The entire factory is collapsing; the crumbling building and screams are so loud now I can’t even hear myself think. I imagine what the outside will look like if we make it—the orange sky, the red desert, and all of the grouplings converging on this factory. It will look like Hell. We reach the ground floor and burst through the heavy metal factory doors.
We crash into each other, just as we did when we exited the Thriftway Building, a tangled mess of arms and legs. I still have my eyes
closed, afraid of what I will see when I hear Jeremy from on top: “Joey, you touch my balls again, and I’m going to fucking kill you, douchebag.” All three of us start pushing and shoving to get other off one another. I open my eyes, and it’s dark and cool, calm—not an orange, vulture-filled dark. We’re standing in the same spot we met Charlie in the beginning, at the rear of the Thriftway.
Everything is back to normal. Joey and Jeremy seem fine. It’s true: death in Sheol is not eternal. I wonder if they remember what it was like as Charlie’s grouplings? I don’t think I’ll ever ask. We start looking around for Ryan but can’t find him. We hear the angry cowboy still yelling and smacking his bat against the dozer. We take off running, releasing a string of “Fuck you!” and “Suck my cock!” expletives and nervous laughter. We run to Jeremy’s house, the warm air in our faces; his is the closest and makes the most sense. We rush in with Jeremy in the lead; luckily, no one is home.
Once inside his bedroom, we finally stop to catch our breath, sweat dripping down our oily faces and our clothes sticking to our bodies. Joey and Jeremy lie on the bed, and I kick off my shoes and flop down on the black beanbag. We hang out in Jeremy’s room so much that I automatically hit the ON button to his Panasonic cassette stereo. We must have fallen asleep because when I wake up, the sun through the window assaults my eyes. I blink feverishly and rub them so long and hard I fear the blood vessels are popping. I stop. Thank God we survived. How did we survive? What did we survive?
The other two stir awake and sit up. There’s an awkward silence for what seems like an eternity as we all three stare at each other. In my mind, I’m trying to figure out what happened, or if it really happened at all. I’m confused, and I know Jeremy and Joey are, too. I finally break the silence. “Do either of you remember what happened last night?” I ask. They both shake their heads left and right without a word, and I drop it. We sit there, each thinking our thoughts, trying to sort out the night. I don’t think any of us ever did. We have never talked about that night, each of us believing a reality that our minds can cope with and chalking the rest up to getting high and having a horrible dream. If we had compared notes, we would have realized that all three of us have the same story, and I don’t think any of us could live with that reality. The only evidence that any of it was real is Ryan.